[Asha] This is your Marketplace. Supermarket secrets. Inside the biggest chains. They're missing a good
quality control program. [Asha] Hidden
cameras and lab tests. Six of those swabbers. [Asha] From food safety... High risk of
causing food poisoning. This milk product is
going to spoil very fast. [Asha] To pandemic protocols. [Asha] And what's the germiest
surface in your grocery store? I'm literally shocked. [Asha] We've got your back. The dirty truth about
supermarkets starts now. Hidden cameras, check. Let's do this. [Asha] Canada's largest grocery
chains, check. How safe is your supermarket? We're about to find out. We're testing cleanliness, safe
food temperatures. This one's at about 16.5. [Asha] And COVID protocols. [Asha] We've got 7 years' worth
of health inspection records for the big chains, Loblaws,
Sobeys, Metro, Costco and Walmart. We visit stores with some of
the most serious infractions. We'll dish the details soon. But first... Meet Kirk Comrie. He says he got COVID-19 after
shopping at his local Toronto Loblaws back in April. His wife Ashley got sick too. From early March we were
basically self-isolating in the house. Going out as little as possible. Ashley never left the house, and
myself only going out for absolutely necessary trips like
going out for groceries. [Asha] What was
having COVID like? Having COVID was frightening. It is nothing like the flu, it
is like a dump truck full of flu sitting on your chest. It came on so fast, like it
went from, "Ah, I have a nagging cough" to a massive
fever and breathing issues. [Asha] Kirk says he saw a
few red flags at the store. His biggest concern? The crowd. This is a photo of you, you're
wearing your mask and then there's a long lineup of
shoppers behind you waiting to check out? There was this line up that went
sort of past the tills, and down past the freezers so once I
followed it went the entire width of the store
and then about 15 feet along the
back of the store. There had to be 30 people
standing in line waiting to check out because they
only had 3 tills open. It was basically a half an hour
wait in a lineup full of people, and as you can see in the
picture, you know maybe 20% of them are wearing masks. [Asha] Masks were not required
in Toronto supermarkets at the time, but Kirk was
wearing one anyway. Because Ashley is
immunocompromised. I texted Ashley and sent her
these pictures and was like, "this is crazy, like
this is not cool". [Asha] Days later, he gets these
emails from Loblaws saying two employees tested
positive for COVID-19. Kirk and Ashley
also test positive. Ashley's journey, it's
been really really difficult. She was in hospital for about 3
days and seemed to be sort of stabilized when her
oxygen levels suddenly tanked. Yeah so at that point they
rushed her into ICU, and she spent the next 3-4 days
fighting for her life. I spent several days, more than
several, days worried that I was not going
to see her again. [Asha] Time for us to see what's
going on inside big chains. We visit stores in Canada's
largest city Toronto with a long list of
serious infractions. Including this Metro. [Asha] This store in North
Toronto had pest problems as far back as 2016. So, what do we
find when we go in? Sure enough. We see flies in the bathroom. And some more in
the meat section, like this one that
doesn't seem to move. Jim Chan knows the dos and
don'ts as a retired Toronto health inspector. We show him our
hidden camera video at an independent
grocery store after hours. What's his take on
the flurry of flies? Ah, why didn't the staff
check for things like that? To me that's just being, not
just careless, but they're missing a good
quality control program. I'm pretty
sure that fly is dead. They're supposed to be
doing their own daily health inspection before they should
even be open to the public. So, to me something like this,
if you can see it, if customer like myself can see it,
why can't the staff seeing that and then remove it. [Asha] As for
pandemic protocols. We see hand sanitizer and an
employee cleaning baskets. [Asha] Masks are now
mandatory indoors in Toronto. And wearing them properly is
essential but that's not what we see during
this spot check. Look at this guy in
the meat department. His mask is under his chin. And we see one employee with
no mask at all, standing and talking
to another staffer. Management are responsible for
training staff on health and safety issues. Why no manager or anyone to ask
that staff member actually put their mask back on or tell
this individual, "don't pull the mask down?" [Asha] Next on our list. Food temperatures. We've got an infrared
thermometer to test things out. Cold food should be
4 degrees or colder. [Asha] Hmmm,
doesn't sound right. So, we check out, and
check in with Jim Chan. We don't waste time. Jim starts testing the internal
temperature of the cold stuff within minutes. It's showing
about 15.2° Celsius. That's way over the
four-degree requirement. [Asha] 11 degrees
warmer than it should be. So, if I picked up this sushi,
you know, for lunch and I ate it what would be the risks? If that been sit around in the
refrigerator last night or even this morning anything over 4
or 5 hours, there's a risk of pathogenic organisms which can
actually cause quite a bit of diarrhea, yeah. Okay. We're going to try the marinated
small octopus. And the octopus? Is around between 17° to 20°. [Asha] That's up to 16
degrees warmer than the required temperature. That is actually an excellent
incubation for bacteria; they will just grow
like crazy in there. [Asha] As a former health
inspector what would Jim Chan do? Get rid of it. [Asha] These ribs and chicken
are at a safe temperature. So, we can eat that for lunch? Ah, yes. [Asha] They get Jim's stamp of
approval but the rest of it would be a crucial infraction. If they have repeats, once or
even twice, that should be a chargeable offence, and then
the inspector can actually issue a ticket. [Asha] Turns out that's exactly
what happened with this store in 2017, after getting
caught twice for not keeping food cold enough. They were convicted and
fined $460 bucks. We find more
temperature troubles at this Metro in
downtown Toronto. -You got the goods?
-Yeah. We'll start with the cold first. And it's actually
holding around 9.4. This one actually
got raw fish inside too, and it's
actually a higher temperature. [Asha] Yeah-- 10.5°! So, if a customer took this
home, how bad would it be? If it's a hot day you continue
to have it at room or warm temperature for
another couple of hours. It is actually quite high food
safety risk and may actually high risk on
causing food poisoning. [Asha] Food poisoning? That's right because you have a
combination of rice, you got raw fish and those actually
are handmade product too. [Asha] Wow, do you want to
check out this table cream? The reading kind of
steady at around 11.9 to 12. This milk or milk product is
going to spoil very fast even get it home, probably way
before the best before date because it's not sitting at
the safe temperature. [Asha] The hot food we test is
hot enough. So yeah, this one is safe. [Asha] But Jim says this
supermarket needs to do better. If you were on the job still
would you write this store up? Oh, yeah. [Asha] We share our findings
with Metro, and they decline our request
to come on camera. They tell us they take
the issues we outlined very seriously and
immediately rectified them. And they add the stores we
visited have passed all of their health inspections
over the last two years. [Asha] Are supermarkets
doing enough to keep you safe? Were you worried about getting
COVID when you would go into work? Yeah! All the time. [Asha] And which supermarket
surface is the germiest. I'm shocked, I'm
literally shocked. [Asha] Get
more Marketplace. Sign up for our weekly
newsletter at cbc.ca/marketplace. [Asha] This is your Marketplace. We're putting some
of the biggest grocery chains to the test in a supermarket
spot check. Kirk Comrie believes he got
COVID while shopping at Loblaws in April. His wife Ashley got sick too. She's recovering in hospital. Kirk hasn't seen her in
person for 6 weeks. -Hi!
-Hello! You look very good today! [Asha] Ashley feels
Loblaws could have done more. And I'm sure they had policies,
but you need to make sure that those are actually
being implemented. -I love you.
-[Ashley] I love you! Bye baby. Love you. [Asha] What's going on
inside the store now? We're on the case. When we go in, we
see clean carts. Hand sanitizer and plenty of
space to physically distance. But at the fish counter, this employee uses his
phone and then serves us. Putting a glove on
without washing his hands. [Asha] Should he have washed
his hands before he handled her food? Wearing gloves seems to be,
"look, I don't have to wash my hands because I have
been using gloves." Gloves is actually worse than
dirty hands, because my dirty gloves can actually carry more
contamination than your hands because your hands get dirty,
you wash them, when the gloves get dirty, if you
don't throw that away, they can actually be
very heavily contaminated. [Asha] We're on our way to catch
up with a former grocery worker who has his own
hand-washing concerns. Lucas Lee was a cashier at
Fortinos owned by Loblaw. I didn't really think about my
own safety until I actually got behind the register and you know
saw like hundreds of people pass me by coughing, not
wearing masks, it wasn't until I actually started that I
realized this job is actually kind of dangerous. [Asha] And to make matters
worse... ..in the employee bathroom... We'd ran out of soap in early
May, the soap dispensers were out, we had two. One never worked and the one
that did work was out of soap. [Asha] So, you couldn't wash
your hands after going to the bathroom. Right. I would think that they should
have had more diligence in such an extreme time,
like the pandemic was. [Asha] Health inspection records
reveal a previous hand-washing infraction
at this Fortinos. What's going on now? We see wipes to clean your cart
and hand sanitizer at the front, but we see some
employees with masks under their chin. Management don't just give staff
masks to put on. You have to tell them to put
on and use properly. If not there's really no reason
to even issue masks, right? [Asha] And in the
public bathroom? [Asha] No soap? We tell employees at the store. [Asha] They refill
the soap but... Should it be the public's
job to tell them about it? No, should never-- it shouldn't
be the public's job and even it shouldn't be the health
inspector's job to babysit the store. [Asha] Lucas is not surprised. He quit Fortinos after
two months on the job. He says putting his safety at
risk was no longer worth it. We tell Loblaw about our
findings including what we've heard from Kirk and Lucas. They won't come on camera but
say they've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in safety
measures and protocols including temperature checks, masks, and
gloves for employees even when it wasn't required. As for no soap in the public
bathroom when we visited, they apologize for the lack of
soap at that specific time. What are you thinking? Well I certainly won't be
shopping here any time soon I can tell you that. [Asha] Not long
after Kirk shopped here, this store voluntarily
closed for two weeks for a deep cleaning. Both Toronto public health and
Loblaw say there was widespread community
transmission of COVID 19 at the time Kirk and
Ashley got sick. So, it's difficult to
pinpoint how they were infected. Kirk says in hindsight he
would've left that crowded store. His advice for other shoppers? Well I would say it falls to
individuals to maintain their own safety. Wear a mask, remain socially
distanced and get in and get out as quickly as possible. [Asha] And now this is the
moment Kirk has been waiting for. It couldn't come quickly enough. Ashley gets discharged after
eight weeks in hospital. She gets a
big warm welcome. [Asha] Which supermarket
surface is the germiest? I'm shocked. I'm literally shocked. [Asha] Time for the big reveal
on your Marketplace. Do you have a story you think we
should investigate? Write to us. Marketplace@cbc.ca. [Asha] This is your Marketplace. Ok, let's get our samples. [Asha] Our swab squad is going
into Canada's biggest chains. 24 stores in all to rank
which supermarket surface is the germiest. Swabbing basket handles. The debit machine.
Freezer door handles. And shopping carts. From front to back. We're testing for
bacteria and E. coli. All the major chains say
they've beefed up their cleaning protocols during
the pandemic so we're putting
that to the test. We collect the samples. Pack 'em up and
take them to a lab. A couple of days
later, our results are in. We ask microbiology expert Jason
Tetro to break it down for us. It's very good for us to be able
to understand where microbes are and how we can both live
with them but also stay safe. [Asha] Time for the big reveal. Coming in at #5 the shopping
cart handle which turns out to be pretty clean! I'm shocked. I'm literally shocked. It turns out that yes indeed,
that wiping every single time that you go by as
you're going into the store has been working. They were clean. The germ guy is
completely shocked. Germ guy approved. Next up, the baby seat. This was a surprise...baby seats
normally would be one of the highest contaminated
places on a shopping cart. But instead we found
almost nothing on those plates. Whatever is being done on those
shopping cart handles probably there's some of the liquid
that's coming while it's being sprayed and it's getting onto
that baby seat, so whatever happens to be there
is getting killed. [Asha] Diving into some
germier surfaces now. It's a tie for the next spot,
the freezer door handle and the front of
the shopping cart. You should not necessarily
be touching the freezer door without hand
sanitizer right afterwards. [Asha] And the runner up? The basket handle. [Jason] There's lots
of bacteria. The basket handle was not
getting the same attention as the shopping cart handle. The shopping cart
handle is now the benchmark. What should we be looking for
when it comes to a bacterial number? Well now we know. We should be doing as good as
the shopping cart handle but we're not. [Asha] Now for the number one
surface with the most bacteria in
a grocery store. The PIN pad. [Jason] The PIN pads were
incredibly germy. We saw lots of bacteria,
they were the germiest. That tells me that the work
that's being done to sanitize the debit
pads is not enough. It really is something that we
need to be taking a closer look at and maybe doing some
better disinfection protocols. What do you say to people
who believe, well it's not that bad, I'm not eating
off the debit machine. So, the first thing you have to
realize is you touch your face about sixteen times every hour,
you cannot help it, that's just who you are. [Asha] And that's one way that
bad germs can make you sick. Our tests found bacteria. But no E. coli anywhere. Now when we walk into a grocery
store, we actually have hand sanitizer, and hand sanitizer
as we all know is really good at getting rid of E. coli. [Asha] Jason has some tips the
next time you're on a shopping trip. To avoid the PIN
pad, tap your card. So, if you can go contactless
that is the optimal option for you. What do you do when
you go to the grocery store? So, for me, it's all
about the hand sanitizer. Your own hygiene has
to become routine. And the more that you adopt this
in your regular life, then it becomes easier when you go into
a place like a grocery store. Take matters into
your own hands. Take your health into
your own hands, absolutely. [Asha] Some food for
thought as you shop. Undercover at
Canada's busiest airport. [David] It's David,
anybody else on the radio? Yup, I'm in the parking lot. I think they're coming over [David] A lucrative cargo. Hello. [Asha] Investigating the
international trade of puppies. Twice a year, we're
babysitting dogs. [Asha] Questionable claims. Where does the mom come from? I don't know off
the top of my head. Customs cleared him. The dog was alive, that's pretty
much the bare minimum to get through. [Asha] And who's behind it all? The Lexus and the
pickup truck, they are taking 427 north. It's the ultimate
pandemic price check. We're asking for the highest
price hikes you've ever seen. We hear from you about... Shoppers.
Sobeys. Canadian Tire. Walmart.
Oceans. Amazon. Who's ripping you off? And are they
getting away with it? If you are out there trying to
price gouge, you're done, you're gone. [Asha] Tough talk. We're going to go after you
and throw the book at you. [Asha] Any action? 500ml, $19.99. [David] That's obscene. Your Marketplace. Always on the case!
